Bicycle Handlebar
by ChocolateIsMyDrug
Summary: From Mohabbatein. My version of how Raj Aryan Malhotra and Megha Shankar met. Basically, plotless fluff. Please read and review!


**A/N: **The funny thing is, I don't even like Mohabbatein. In fact, I find it utterly boring. My hopes were really high too, following DDLJ. The one scene I did like from the movie was the part with Aish, and I loved Aish-SRK's love story, though I think they have better brother-sister chemistry. This is totally pointless, plotless fluff, but I had fun writing it and I hope you have fun reading it!

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**Bicycle Handlebar**

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It was a regular Tuesday afternoon and Raj Malhotra was doing something he did every so often – he was going to the mall with the other guys to hang around, possibly catch a movie or something afterwards. As usual, other users of public transport glared at the thirty or so students in red blazers, talking, laughing and taking up an enormous amount of space with their backpacks.

Raj himself was squashed against a partially open window. He could see a couple of other boys from Gurukul and a bunch of girls from the girls' college nearby standing around the entrance of the bus.

'Forget it,' laughed one of the girls who had her back to him. 'If it's too packed for them –' she gestured to the Gurukul boys who had given up trying to get onto the bus – 'then it _must _be full.'

Raj half-grinned, half-winced. Harsh, but true.

He looked at the girl in question who was now evidently listening to one of her friends who was whispering something very funny, most probably about the Gurukul boys, judging from where they were all looking and giggling. The girl was dressed in the same uniform as the rest: white blouse, blue jumper, blue pleated skirt, navy-blue tights and black shoes. Her long, dark hair was tied back in a ponytail.

Just then, the bus gave a start and began to move away from the stop. The girl jumped, turning at the sound. Raj realized with a jolt of something like surprise that she was rather pretty. She wore no make-up, but she hardly needed any. She had nice features, he decided. Nice, straight nose, nice cheekbones. Her eyes stood out the most, though. They were a sort of greeny-grey, rather nice colour...

As the eyes he was admiring widened in surprise, he realized not without embarrassment that she had caught him looking. With an appearance of calm that would have been betrayed if she had noticed his reddened ears, he looked at her for a second more and then moved his gaze slowly over the other people at the bus stop, trying to look as if he hadn't been staring. When he looked back, the bus had moved too far to make out her face.

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He was wrong. He knew that for sure now. Her nose wasn't completely straight. It had a small bump at the bridge. Whenever she laughed, the almost unnoticeable bump became more visible. Somehow this small imperfection only made her seem prettier.

He could see her profile now; she was sitting with a bunch of friends on the table near the other end of the food court. He noted the careful way she spread the napkin on her lap, the childish way she held her fork, gripping it as one would a bicycle handlebar rather than a fork.

At that moment, she suddenly looked straight at him as if she felt his gaze on her. This time, his reflexes betrayed him – he couldn't make it look like he wasn't staring. Instead, he did the most clichéd thing ever – he blushed and hastily looked away. _Idiot,_ he thought to himself, _idiot, idiot, idiot._

Now the girl was probably laughing at him. Boys probably stared at her all the time as he had done. She was probably used to it; maybe she even found it amusing. Ten seconds later, he chanced another glance at her, wondering whether she had told all her friends and if they were all laughing too.

But no. In fact, the strangest thing happened. The girl was still looking at him, her cheeks tinged with a quite becoming blush. When their eyes met again, hers were the cheeks to grow hotter – hers was the head to quickly duck away.

In that moment Raj knew that this girl didn't even realize she was beautiful; this unawareness was what made her so captivating.

Now sure that she wouldn't laugh at him, he stared at her boldly until she looked up again. When she finally did, he gave her the warmest, most heartfelt smile he could muster. Her eyes widened in surprise and she looked over her shoulder as if checking that he was really smiling at her and not someone behind her (again displaying that total humility and modesty that Raj found so oddly endearing). Finally sure that it was her and only her he was smiling at, she smiled shyly back, her face glowing pink.

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**A/N:** How was it? Please review with any comments! )


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